Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Why the New iPhone Looks the Same

It’s a pattern at Apple, and the iPhone 4S — despite disappointment from some — fits right into it.

Look back at Apple products and you see this pattern at work.

The first iMac was a colorful, one-box machine that was released in 1998.

By 2002, the iMac had changed — radically. It became a flat-screen model that was attached to its semicircular base by an articulated arm.

But in 2004, a new design surfaces. As opposed to the slightly ungainly combination of screen and base, the iMac turns into a minimalist white panel. Watch this space, because it’s not going to change very much.

In 2006, the iMac trades in its white polycarbonate shell for a sleeker aluminum one. And over the years that follow, screws are tightened, millimeters are halved, but the overall design stays more or less the same. The real improvements are all inside the box, in the form of faster processors and new connection ports, among other things.

Take a look at Apple’s portable computers and the change is even slower — the current line of MacBooks hasn’t changed significantly in design in nearly six years.

It would appear that once Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief designer, and his merry band settle on something they like, they don’t go changing for the sake of change. Which makes sense if you’ve ever heard Mr. Ive speak about design. His approach is a modern application of Dieter Rams’s “10 Principles of Good Design,” which was employed while Mr. Rams was at Braun, a design leader in the 1970s and ’80s. It is Mr. Rams’s last principle that one imagines Mr. Ive has posted on a wall somewhere in Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.:

Good design is as little design as possible — Less, but better — because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with nonessentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

The iPhone 4S is not a misstep — it fits right in with what Apple does.

What's Next

About

Gadgetwise is a blog about everything related to buying and using tech products. From figuring out which gadget to buy and how to get the best deal on it to configuring it once it’s out of the box, Gadgetwise offers a mix of information, analysis and opinion to help you get the most out of your personal tech.